It's the third week of production in the shooting of a film adaptation of the first Hawthorne/Horowitz mystery novel. Everything has gone as well as could be expected -- except that they're behind schedule, they're out of money, and....

Hawthorne has been murdered?

No. Not ex-police detective inspector and now private eye Daniel Hawthorne, but rather the actor portraying him in The Word is Murder. And, it seems nearly everyone on the set had a motive to want David Caine dead.

Hawthorne and Anthony Horowitz, the biographer of the detective's cases as well as his "Watson," are also on the set. Unlike in other stories in the series, DSI Sarah Milnes feels unqualified to investigate a murder and welcomes Hawthorne to take the reins.

From the start, Hawthorne is focused on the half-dozen or so people who may have wanted to plunge a knife into Caine's neck. Since Hawthorne's name was on the door of the trailer where the murder took place, Horowitz wonders if the detective may have been the intended target of an enemy from his past. Hawthorne dismisses the idea, but is shocked later when they encounter a woman at a local pub who blames him for the deaths of her husband and daughter. Horowitz is good at slipping tidbits like this into the storyline just when you're confidently heading down a different road.

This incident provides an opportunity for Horowitz to dig into the secrecy surrounding Hawthorne's past -- an expedition that lands him in trouble with the detective's wealthy and powerful support team.

This is the sixth in this entertaining mystery series. It isn't necessary to have read previous books in the series to understand and enjoy this one. But they are addictive. If you read one, you're sure to want more.

I should also point out that the writer Anthony Horowitz has added himself as a character and Hawthorne's foil in the novels, adding a touch of reality to his fictional world. It doesn't hurt that his personal experience in the worlds of theater and TV adds to that sense of the factual.